sf says...

"OMG, our beloved Emperor is gone! (sorta') But don't worry: the Democrats are fanning the flames of crazy, so it's just a matter of time before they run things again."

Friday, January 29

Cops in Kiel, Germany, ordered to ignore shoplifting by immigrants?

The disaster in Europe continues to worsen. Germany is one of half a dozen European countries that's been overrun--perhaps it would be more accurate to say "invaded"--by so-called "refugees" from the middle-east and North Africa.

Anyone wanna guess the effects this policy will have? Sure you can: Shoplifting will go exponential. If someone was raised in a culture that views "infidels" as worthless, and the local officials have ordered the cops not to haul you to jail if you steal, why in the world would you not simply take anything you wanted?

Morality? Honesty? Simple civil behavior? You have to be kidding!

So...local officials recognized a problem--and proceeded to make it vastly worse. How typical.

That's right, these pinhead politicians demanded that people register and get a license to shovel snow for a few bucks.

And the damn license could be *very* expensive: $450 in one town. And was only good for one season!

Last year two teens going door-to-door offering to shovel snow for
a few bucks were stopped by the cops in Bound Brook. The cops told the boys they were not allowed to "solicit businesses" without a permit. In Bound Brook that license costs $450 and is only good for a period of 180 days.
After the story made national headlines, state lawmakers began working on a solution, saying it was incredible that some towns wanted teens to pay
expensive licensing fees just to clear snow off driveways.

The real question we should be asking is not whether there is something
inherently wrong with the refugees, but whether Germany is doing an
effective job of integrating them — and if not, whether something can be
done to change that.

Yes, this is the way the liberals at the Times think. Mob identified as immigrants sexually assaults women in the main square of Germany's fourth-largest city, and the Times editors conclude that the "real" question is NOT whether there's anything "inherently wrong" with the attackers, but whether Germany has done a good job of integrating them into German society.

Emperor starts new program to set up Mortgage Meltdown 2.0

Remember the Great Housing Meltdown (a.k.a. collapse of the mortgage markets)? If you're under 30 you don't, but in any case I'll explain: One of the ideas aggressively pushed by Bill Clinton to help his re-election was to force banks to make mortgage loans to people who normally wouldn't have qualified for one.

Clinton and the Democrats did this by passing laws and making rules that promised mortgage lenders that they could sell these "risky" mortgages--loans the borrowers were unlikely to repay--to two "quasi"-federal mortgage agencies--cutely named Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Such loans were called "sub-prime."

Combined this with the Dems' instructions to aggressively prosecute banks and other lenders who wouldn't go along with the program, and it had the totally predictable effect of producing an avalanche of bad mortgage loans--ones which were highly likely to end in default.

These eventually became known in the mortgage and banking industry as "ninja" loans: applicants would qualify for a mortgage even if they had "no income, no job and no assets." And the flood of new buyers pushed the price of housing in "hot" cities through the roof.

When the wave of defaults from previously-unqualified home buyers started rolling in, the government agencies first tried to deny, deflect and hope for the best. This worked about as well as you'd expect. When the agencies were finally forced to start foreclosing on the defaulted loans, that pushed a huge wave of homes onto the market--depressing all home prices. Because the price of ALL homes dropped, many borrowers who had made all their payments but had to sell due to a new job now found themselves "upside down" in the mortgage: They couldn't sell for as much as they owed on their home loan--they had to bring money to the table to sell.

With that as background, your emperor is rolling out what might be called "Sub-prime 2.0"--a new mortgage program that lets low-income borrowers count income from
nonborrowers living in the household.

Hey, what could go wrong?

But the emperor and his lackeys are cunning: One assumes they know what caused the last housing meltdown, so they didn't want to call it "sub-prime." Instead they call it the "HomeReady program." (The last sub-prime program was called MyCommunityMortgage.) They describe it as "an alternative mortgage program."

But
it might was well be called DefaultReady, because it is just as risky
as the subprime junk Fannie peddled to cause the last crisis.

So under the new program a
renter can get a conventional home loan backed by Fannie by
claiming a
roommate's paycheck to augment your qualifying income. You can even claim the earnings of people who won't be living in the property.

Best of all, borrowers can pay as little as 3% down. And borrowers who have defaulted before are eligible.

Fannie and its regulators say this new program won't introduce any undue risk into the mortgage-finance system.
Gee, where have we heard that before?

One of Fannie Mae's tactics to reduce the default rate is to ensure that high-risk borrowers understand the
importance of making their monthly mortgage payments. And how does the government propose to accomplish this? Hold onto your hats here: It'll require lenders to ask applicants to take a four-hour online
course on home ownership.

Well there ya go. Gosh, wonder why no lender ever thought of that before?

We've
seen this movie before, and it does not end well. Like earlier no-standards mortgage programs, this one will simply expand into lower and lower
income markets while slashing requirements and burning lending standards
even more.
Eventually it will become a no-income, no-job, nothing-down giveaway.

Friday, January 8

State Dept refuses to deny that a Hellfire missile was "sold" to Cuba ??

Short news story yesterday said a state-of-the-art USAF Hellfire missile somehow ended up in Cuba.

Later story said the missile was a dummy.

Then at a State Department press conference some reporters asked the spokesdick for details.

If you can read body language, it looks like the guy went into lockup mode, repeatedly *reading* from a paper in front of him that he was barred by federal law from commenting about any aspect of export licensing, foreign trade, defense contracts, partridges in pear trees and everything else.

“I am restricted, under federal law and regulations, from commenting on
the specific defense trade, licensing cases and compliance matters,”
State Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press conference
Friday. “What I can say is under the Arms Export Control Act, the State
Department licenses both permanent and temporary exports by U.S.
companies of regulated defense articles,” Kirby added.

Next reporter: "Did the State Department sell this missile to the Cuban government?"
Spokesdick: "I can't comment. I've said all I can say about this."

Finally another reporter said "So rather than simply deny that the U.S. sold this missile to Cuba, you're gonna leave without denying that?"
Spokesdick: "Next question."

I didn't believe it either, but take a look for yourself:

Lord, I sincerely hope this is exactly what it appears to be.

U.S. officials have been urging the Cuban government to return the missile. And now note that the shipment of the missile to Cuba happened in 2014. Your emperor normalized relations with Cuba in 2015. A rational president would have insisted on the return of the missile as a condition of resuming normal relations--which hugely, lopsidedly benefitted the Cuban government.

Of course Bullshit Barry didn't trouble himself to insist on the missile's return. Gosh, if only we had a class of people in this country who would ask him why he didn't demand its return...

When Bullshit Barry and Hillary lied their ass off after four Americans were killed in Benghazi, many of us thought that was Barry's Watergate. But predictably, the mainstream media turned the story into "Look how those awful Republicans are trying to make a nothing story into a scandal!"

And it worked. Both Barry and Hillary skated, dodging all responsibility for...everything.

Maybe this latest scandal could finally cause the mainstream media to stop defending the emperor's fuckups.

The
two groups said the woman confronted her son and urged him to flee with her,
out of fear that coalition forces would soon sweep in and defeat ISIS. But the son reported her to ISIS authorities, who then
ordered Saqr to execute her in front of the post office where she
worked, according to the Syrian Observatory.

Keep repeating, citizen: This has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.

How one episode of gross corruption of government officials played out

Allow me to show you how corrupt politicians can rape taxpayers, in a very obvious, easily-recognized manner. The key phrase here is "easily-recognized." The goal is that once you see how this scam worked, it will enable you to see how the emperor's regime is doing the same thing to you--albeit in a more sophisticated way.

The example is from the town of Bell, California--a town of 35,000 people, near Los Angeles. It's one of the poorest towns in the state, with a per-capita income of $25,000. Roughly 90% of residents are latino. Unemployment is 16%.

In response to several instances of grossly high salaries some city leaders in the state--including a city adjacent to Bell--had rammed through for themselves, early in 2005 the state legislature passed a law limiting salaries for cities that didn't have a charter.

Months after that law was passed, a measure appeared on the city ballot of Bell to convert the city to a "charter city"--exempting its leaders from the state limitation.

The measure was touted as one that "would give the city more control." (Control of *what* seems not to have been much discussed.)

The measure passed, with 336 votes in favor and 54 against.

Of the 390 ballots, 239 were absentee.

Hmmm...huge percentage of absentee ballots. Where have we seen that before? Wonder what percent of the absentee ballots were "for"? Care to guess?

One resident of Bell, on condition of anonymity, told The LA Times he was given the job of retrieving absentee ballots. "Our objective was to collect absentee ballots, and if they were not filled out, instruct them how to fill it out...[or] fill it out for them", he said. Some residents went to the polling place only to find that someone had already voted under their name.

Result: City manager Robert Rizzo got a 47% pay increase, to $442,000 per year--for a city of 35,000 people. And yes, that means that *before* the increase his city salary was almost $300,000.

For a city of 35,000 people.

Rizzo soon collected a salary of $787,637 per year, with yearly 12% increases scheduled every July, until the year the scandal broke when his salary was $1.5 million per year.

For a city of 35,000 people.

The signature on the contract specifying the huge annual increases seems to have been forged. The city attorney denies that he signed it.

In addition to the outrageous salary, Rizzo also received paid vacation, sick and personal time of 28 weeks off per year.

On April 25, 2011 at least two more illegal retirement accounts were revealed, totalling $4.5 million, to benefit city manager Rizzo, assistant manager Angela Spaccia and a select few council members. Another account was found to be set up to benefit only Rizzo and Spaccia, letting them evade IRS regulations which cap government pensions. Lourdes Garcia, the city's director of administrative services, testified under limited immunity that Rizzo told her in 2008 that his goal was to put $14 million in one or both of these hidden pension funds, which would be paid by the city.

Amazingly--or perhaps predictably--Rizzo remains totally unrepentant, claiming his salary was a reward by the town's citizens for doing such a great job. Of course the citizens didn't agree to the outrageous salary. But much good should it do them, because Rizzo is now free, and living on a taxpayer-funded pension of $100,000 per year.

The city's new website shows that seven more city workers received
excessively high salaries, with two making more than $400,000 per year
and three making more than $200,000.[24]
Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia collected $376,288 a year, with the same 12% annual pay increase as her boss. Bell Police Chief Adams, who oversaw a 46-person department, had an annual salary of $457,000.

Point of the story: Rizzo was the top guy in the little town, and he'd bribed virtually all the other town officials--including the council and police chief--with similarly fraudulently inflated salaries, which made everyone unwilling to blow the whistle.

As Lord Acton noted 150 years ago: Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. And people down the organizational chart take their cues from the top guy: If he's corrupt--whether thru graft or simply morally or ethically--everyone else will follow suit, because there's no down-side.

Emperor's "town hall" is invitation-only??

Following his executive actions this week, President Obama used Democrat shill CNN to televise what both called a "town hall" to discuss
gun control.

The so-called "town hall" was scheduled for George Mason University, hosted by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. But historically, a town hall meeting was a frank discussion between people with different viewpoints.

What kind of faux "town hall" meeting only invites people with one, already-confirmed viewpoint?

That would be one held by the emperor and his media lackeys.

You think I'm kidding, but according to a memo sent by
GMU Communications and Marketing Vice President Renell Wynn to faculty and students earlier this
week, the emperor's "town hall" meeting was invitation-only.
"This is an invitation-only event. No tickets are available," the memo states. "The event is not open to the public."

How...typical of the emperor, and the attitude of most Dems: No criticism shall appear in the mainstream media. And since that's how most voters get their information, you've just "won" the "debate."

"What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chatrooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women," he said. "This is poisoning the climate of our society."

Any questions on where this jerk stands? Does any rational person doubt he's firmly, totally in the pro-immigrant, anti-German camp?

Here's how the Britain's "Telegraph" reported it:

Ministers have said there is no evidence asylum seekers were involved in the violence.
But the leaked police report, published in Bild newspaper and Spiegel, a news magazine, claims that one of those involved told officers: “I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me.”

Another tore up his residence permit before the eyes of police, and told them: “You can’t do anything to me, I can get a new one tomorrow.”

The Telegraph also reports the number of women who reported being assaulted has gone from "dozens" to 100.

This isn't a simple misunderstanding. It's war. And I'd like to think that if this had happened in the U.S. there'd be a lot of seriously injured assailants. But given emperor Obama's strong pro-Muslim stance, I'm not sure that would happen now. And in Germany, with Frau Merkel having led the fight to allow 1.1 million "immigrants" in last year, it's hard to imagine any level of the German people putting an end to this.

WASHINGTON — President Obama
mocked critics of his administration's refugee policy Wednesday amid a
growing clamor from Republican governors, congressmen and presidential
candidates for a moratorium on new arrivals from Syria.

"Apparently,
they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of
America as part of our tradition of compassion. First, they were worried
about the press being too tough on them during debates. Now they’re
worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn’t sound very tough to
me," Obama said in Manila in a joint press conference with Philippine
President Benigno Aquino.

The HR commission has
now released its final rule-- and it's as crazy as you'd expect.

The commission has decided it shall henceforth be illegal to ask“unwelcome
personal questions about an individual’s sexual orientation, gender
expression or gender identity, or transgender status.” In other words, if a woman in Washington State is in the women's locker room and a man walks
in and starts undressing, the new rule makes it illegal
for her even to ask him what he is doing there, much less ask him to leave. The only legal recourse she has is to leave the locker
room quietly. The naked guy gets to stay.

But wait, it gets better: the new rule applies to schools as well as businesses,
so according to this crazy "rule" school kids could be charged with violating it if they encounter the same situation at school.

As you'd expect, the rule doesn't try to define what constitutes an “unwelcome” personal question about a
person’s gender expression. Presumably it's like who decides what speech is deemed offensive to Muslims: the
member of the specially protected group gets to decide whether they're offended.

The rule also makes it illegal for a business or school to
deliberately refer to any person by a pronoun that's not the one that person prefers. Thus Washington State joins New York city in fining people who call males “he” if they want to be called “she.”

The rule also states that it is illegal to ask someone using the "wrong" facility to use a separate facility. Instead--you won't believe this--the "solution" is that anyone who is uncomfortable around such a person "should be directed to a
separate or gender-neutral facility.”

Now, Washington State has long been known as one of the most left-wing states. Moonbat territory. But even with this in mind, it’s hard to
imagine that any society so full crazy as to make rules like this one can survive much longer.

One of the 3 creators of Common Core math says parents shouldn't try to teach their kids math

Saw an article on the Net an hour ago claiming that one of the 3 "chief creators" of Common Core math had said parents shouldn't try to help their kids puzzle out CC math homework-- which strikes most parents as a gross perversion of what should be a straightforward skill.

Sure enough, they'd interviewed Jason Zimba, who claims the credit noted at top. Here's the headline on the story (and remember, this is from an outfit that's strongly pro-common-core):

Back off parents: It’s not your job to teach Common Core math when helping with homework

Parents across the country are trying to make sense of Common Core
standards, a set of academic expectations that call for less focus on
memorization and more focus on explaining how solutions were found and,
in English, a deep probe of text.

If you're confused about what the author means by "in English, a deep probe of text" join the club. So these left-wing nuts think kids need to "deeply probe the text" to add or subtract two numbers? Hell, that explains most of the problem right there.

Advocates of the program argue that the skills are still the basic
ones we learned as children but in the new curricula developed around
the standards, the questions are often presented differently. That often
means homework, an age-old source of angst for many families, has
gotten even more complicated. Parents, like myself, are trying to guide
children through questions that make little sense to adults who were
taught math using other methods.

Before you throw up your hands and walk away from homework – a recent study in Psychological Science
found that math-anxious parents who help children on homework breed
math-anxious children – experts say there are several strategies you can
try that don’t require relearning arithmetic.

Didja catch that sly innuendo? They're implying that if your kid is "math-anxious" about Common Core, it must be because you (the parents) are similarly "math-anxious."

In other words, it's your fault.

I must have missed the memo: Has entry-level math changed in any significant way in the last 50 years? No? Then why have the creators of Common Core managed to develop, publish and distribute text material that's so radically unlike the math parents learned that many (most?) adults can't understand it?

Back to the Hechinger Report:

DON’T TRY TO BE A MATH GURU
“The most important rule as a parent is to make sure it [sic; presumably homework. No antecedent so hard to know] gets done. I
may not have time to do an impromptu lesson on math but I can make sure
everything is completed,” said Jason Zimba, one of the three lead
writers of Common Core’s math standards and founding partner of Student
Achievement Partners, a group that helps teachers with the standards.
“It’s about managing workload and learning accountability.”

How can parents make sure homework is completed if they don't understand what the "school solution" method is? (Hint: just getting the correct answer is NOT what they demand.) And Zimba claims "It's about managing workload and learning accountability." Funny, I thought it was about learning how to do math. And note again the subtle blame-shift: As the parent, aren't you accountable for your kid? Sure. So if your kid isn't doing well, whose fault must that be?

Although [Zimba] gives his children, ages 6 and 8, math
tutorials on Saturday mornings, he says a parent doesn’t have to be a
numbers whiz when it comes to homework.

“The math instruction on the part of parents should be low. The teacher is there to explain the curriculum,” said Zimba.

Another strategy, said [Denver teacher Lauren Fine], is asking the child to teach you the concept. “If you don’t know how to do it, ask your child to teach you, to show
you how it’s done,” said Fine. Often, she said, the kids get it but
parents don’t.

This is classic. Virtually all successful adults know at least basic math, but the "elites" in the education empire want to throw the successful parents overboard: The parents can't teach their kids math, because...well, in the years since the parents were in school, math has, like, totally changed! "You bitter clingers need to understand that you never really understood complex math skills like addition and subtraction, so how could you possibly teach your kids the right way to do those? Look at how miserably you failed at teaching your kids how great same-sex sex is, or that the Constitution is totally outdated and useless! So what in the world would make you think you were competent to teach your kid math?"

Even though Zimba didn't object when the Hechinger Report article credited him as one of the 3 creators, in an interview with a non-Left-wing reporter Zimba was canny enough to imply that the Common Core math approach was really a team effort by LOTS of teachers.

Zimba: "We work with teachers to
develop implementation tools..."

Color me skeptical but I'd love to see a reporter ask this guy which teachers--by name--worked with him to develop this goofy method. I'll bet the drink of your choice that any of these supposed team members were ultra-leftists. Hard to imagine anyone who really loves this country or kids or education would think the approach taken by CC will improve students' math proficiency.

As an aside: When I was in 9th grade an outfit like Zimba's conned our previously-excellent school system into buying a new approach to math called "set theory," published by "School Mathematics Study Group." It was supposed to be The New, Cool Way of learning math--just like CC. Parents had no idea what the hell it was saying, so couldn't help their kids master the new teaching method. And for the three years it stayed in our schools, math proficiency dropped like an anvil.

I'd like to learn more about who developed the "new, oh-so-cool" method, and who in each state system approved it. Hard to imagine that NO ONE on the state boards did any sort of research into how well this Great New Method had worked in other cities--which suggests to me that perhaps someone on the city's school board got a fat bribe. But I'm cynical that way.

In reality it was crap, and most of my classmates' math proficiency took a big hit.

Seems to me Common Core uses the same theory as our SMSG method: The old way of teaching math is old and uncool, thus clearly flawed. We elites will show you the New, Improved, Cool Method. Oh, and you'll use this new method or it'll cost ya.

Sure am glad I don't have any kids. And my heart goes out to those of you who do.

Wednesday, January 6

Noemie Emery: "Media have been giving Obama a pass"

In the spring of 2007 something strange happened to the coverage of Iraq by U.S. media: it disappeared.

As soon as the news from Iraq ceased to be bad, the media lost interest in covering
it. The mainstream media had no interest in reporting the fact that Bush's decision had worked. They couldn't bear to believe it, and refused to report on it.

But regarding the
current Middle East crises--which make Iraq in 2006 seem calm in
comparison--the reverse is happening: This time the press, which can no longer deny that the world
has been going to hell since Barack Obama started unleashing his
peacemaking powers, is doing its best to insulate him from
any possible blame for it.

Where mainstream reporters asked Bush almost every day if he
regretted invading Iraq, not one ever asks Obama--the guy they strongly supported and refused to vet--if he thinks leaving Iraq
has had anything to do with the chaos engulfing the region, or the huge upswing in attacks claimed by ISIS.

And while the media held Bush responsible for every casualty that
occurred anywhere while he held office, Obama gets a complete pass for the massacres, rapes and enslavement of innocents
that have followed his numerous foreign policy blunders. As far as the media are concerned, he had nothing to do with any of the disasters.

If we had a Republican president the media would be hammering him for the unbroken series of failures,
mistakes, and false starts over the last seven years. By huge contrast, failures and mistakes by Obama are virtually ignored by the press. He's allowed to fail
quietly, discreetly, out of the spotlight. Thus into a second year of
beheadings and horror, instead of headlines reading "Another 24 prisoners beheaded by ISIS," we see headlines like "Attacks don't shake
president's faith in patient strategy" (an actual headline in the Washington Post).

Pro-immigration mayor of Cologne now says they have no idea who assaulted women on NYE

Yesterday I told you about the mob of 1,000 or so "males" that sexually assaulted women in Germany's 4th-largest city. Witnesses and victims of the assault described the mob as being composed of men of North African or middle-eastern appearance. Police detained five, and all were recent immigrants, as identified by EU papers they carried.

The city's female mayor was said to be irate--a position also taken by the city's police chief. They were NOT gonna put up with this stuff! No sir!

But then, as they say, a funny thing happened: Despite cops and the female victims identifying the assailants as being of North African or middle-eastern appearance, mayor Henriette Reker and the police chief now say they really don’t know who the attackers were--and by inference, that the victims either don't know either, or perhaps were lying in their identification.

We're awaiting scathing comments from NOW or other U.S. feminist organizations--because this is precisely the "she was asking for it" argument they've waged war on for decades.

What? You say not a single feminist organization has gone postal on the goofy duo in Cologne? I'm...I'm...well I'd say "surprised" but of course none of us is a bit surprised.

Of course you think this is fiction--that I simply fabricated this to stir up outrage. Yeah, I can totally understand that, since it sounds so crazy. But click on the link above and see for yourself.

The mayor and the police chief held what was billed as a "crisis meeting" to de-fuse the outrage beginning to build in Germany from this assault. Part of their strategy was to discredit the victims' identifications of their attackers. The mayor was strongly motivated to do this because for years she's been (and remains) a strong supporter of unlimited immigration into Germany. It's one of the goals of the left.

So to permit the victims' identifications of their assailants as "immigrants" simply wouldn't do. Gotta' shift the blame immediately! Click the link above to see their press conference, and the translation.

The first thing is to concentrate on preventive measures, which
will be applied immediately for the upcoming Cologne Festival.
Also there will be “behavioral regulations” for girls and
women “so that they will not experience such things again,” said Reker
in reference to the sexual attacks. There is
already a behavioral catalogue which will now be actualized [?] and will soon be
available online.

One of the regulations [sic, but likely a mistranslation; probably "recommendations"] is that women shall keep an arm’s length
distance from foreigners, stay with their own groups, don’t
separate from that group, and in an emergency ask surrounding
people for help and to step in as witnesses or inform the police.

Just...wow. "In an emergency, ask surrounding people for help." Yeah, I'm sure that never occurred to any of the victims of the assaults. And since law-abiding Germans have no weapons, I'm sure asking people to help will be very effective.

Oh, and ask surrounding people to "inform the police." Would that be so the cops can accuse victims of having no idea of the appearance of the men who assaulted them. Yeah, sounds like a great plan.

(The transcript at Gates of Vienna doesn't begin to accurately portray mayor Henriette Reker's astonishing stupidity or treachery. To really understand how bad this is you need to see her make these statements herself. Unfortunately that video at GoV doesn't work, but here's a link to the same vid. Again, you simply can't believe it until you've seen it.)

"No-one should use the attacks to discredit refugees wholesale," said Justice Minister Heiko Maas. "If there were asylum seekers among the perpetrators, that is far from a reason to place all refugees under general suspicion." But for many conservatives and people on the far-right, news of the
events in Cologne has confirmed rumours coursing online in recent months
of increasing numbers of sexual crimes by Muslims in Germany.

Former Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich accused
journalists of operating a "cartel of silence and lockdown of news" and said it was "a scandal that it took days for the public media report the assaults."

The head of the German Journalists' Union retorted that "A report on suspicion that's not covered by solid research is incompatible with the principles of responsible journalism, and
inflammatory." [Ah yes, when considering whether to publish news that undermines the ruling party, by all means let's delay until everyone is absolutely certain of all facts.]

And Tagesspiegel online editor Markus Hesselmann tweeted that "the
lesson from Cologne is not to report faster, but to report more exactly,
more sensibly, more reliably. All that usually means slower."

Ah yes, let's report "more sensibly, more reliably." Who could argue with that? In fact, why don't you media dinosaurs simply not report anything critical of your ruling regimes? Leave that to the internet. Even though people who post on the Net lack your "layers and layers of fact-checkers and editors," the only people who believe a word you print or broadcast are people over 65 or members of the so-called "free shit army" who will believe any bullshit from the gummint as long as they get their free shit.

You should also know that one of the standard deflections used by the mainstream media to fail to say a word about a story they don't want to publish is that it's "old news." If no one prints a word about some negative story for 3 days or so, the mainstream media can and often will ignore it by claiming that no one is interested in the story since it's...wait for it..."old."

To understand what "16/18" does, you need to know about an organization called the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). It's a group of 57 mostly majority-Muslim countries that comprises the largest voting bloc in the U.N.

In 2005 the OIC published a 10 Year Plan of Action to criminalize ‘defamation of Islam.’ But rather than use those words--which free people would correctly have recognized as a complete revocation of free speech--the OIC drafters substituted the far more benign phrase “Countering Islamophobia.” The ten-year plan includes this:

3. Endeavor to have the United Nations adopt an
international resolution to counter Islamophobia, and call upon all
States to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments.

That was 2005. Six years later, in December of 2011, the U.N. passed UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, which was co-sponsored by
Pakistan...and the United States??

You're kidding, right?

Unfortunately I'm not. And it gets better:

After the murder of a dozen unarmed French employees of the satire mag Charlie Hebdo by Muslim terrorists, the spokesman for the OIC--one "Ufuk Gokcen"--tweeted...what, great sympathy for the unarmed victims so cruelly slaughtered by the men armed with machineguns?

Of course not. Muslim diplomat Gokcen tweeted this:

That is, he implies the mass shooting--which your emperor claims simply doesn't happen outside the U.S. (yes, he actually said that--in Paris, no less--and just three days after a second group of Muzz armed with machineguns killed an additional 130 Parisians)--was the fault of the victims, and that the fix is to outlaw criticism or lampooning of Islam.

Now, why is this resolution so important? Because Hillary Clinton strongly backed it. And it would be astronomically unlikely that she would admit doing so was stupid.

It would certainly be helpful if a reporter would ask Hillary whether she still supported 16/18, and if so, what she thinks it requires U.N. members to do to their citizens that criticized Islam or its murderous pedophile prophet.

Really, you need to click on that last link. It's a textbook example of "lawfare" used by the former Soviet Union and everyone they trained: Blur the rules, and later claim everyone agreed to X when that wasn't remotely the case.

And did it work? Well here's how the U.S. Left spins the resolution:

Resolution 16/18, Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and
stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and
violence against persons based on religion or belief, was adopted
by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2011. Among its many specific
points, it highlights barriers to religiously tolerant societies and
provides recommendations on how these barriers can be overcome. The
resolution calls upon all member states to foster religious freedom and
pluralism, to ensure religious minorities are properly represented, and
to consider adopting measures to criminalize incitement to imminent
violence based on religion or belief. Other recommendations include
creating government programs to promote inter-religious tolerance and
dialogue, training government employees to be sensitive toward religious
sensitivities, and engaging in outreach initiatives.

Wow, who could possibly be worried about such wonderful ideas, right? It says the drafters want to "highlight barriers to religiously tolerant societies," right? Sounds great--except what the resolution's drafters--the member states of the Organization for Islamic bullshit mean by that isn't at all the ordinary meaning of the phrase.

What they mean is, no one will be permitted to say anything deemed by them to be critical of Islam.

Really? Consider that the OIC had been trying to pass this resolution for several years, and that previous versions proposed criminalizing
"blasphemous speech" and “defamation of religion.” These were regularly
rejected by our U.N. delegation on the grounds that limitations on speech – even speech deemed to be "blasphemous" – violated our Constitution.

But after the ascension of emperor Barack, the U.S. government mysteriously switched positions: The Constitution's protection of free speech was thrown overboard in the rush to please Muslims.

Again, you're just sure this has to be tinfoil-hat stuff. You literally can't believe it. But the version that passed--with U.S. approval--includes the “incitement to imminent violence”
phrase quoted above. You think that simply bars some redneck from saying 'We need to kill some o' them Muzz guys,' and since you're fine with banning that you don't think the "incitement" clause is a problem.

But once any kind of speech is criminalized, the crucial next step is...who decides if, say, a cartoon could be said to "incite" someone to violence?
Would speech considered “blasphemous” do it? Of course--because fundamentalist Muslims are incited to violence by...well, virtually everything.

Again, if you want to know what the OIC has in mind with this resolution, look at the language they originally proposed: Against "blasphemy." Which they alone get to define.

Getting the picture yet? And keep in mind that while the Bush administration steadfastly opposed the original language, the emperor's regime--including Hillary Clinton--approved the resolution after the drafters substituted "incitement" for "blasphemy." But the change is simply cosmetic--no rational adult can deny that it limits speech. The emperor and Hillary have ditched free speech to win the favor of the Muslim drafters.

Example: If anyone writes a column objecting to any Islamic government or group throwing gays off buildings, or stoning rape victims (a very common fate for Muslim women who've been raped), or against what the mainstream media prefers to euphemize as simply "FGM"--cutting off the clitoris of 12-year-old girls--then you've criticized Islam. And violated resolution 16/18.

Resolution 16/18 explicitly seeks to have U.N. member states pass laws to enact criminal penalties. For example, Quebec has introduced "Bill 59," which would criminalize websites offensive to Islam with fines of up
to $20,000. If this bill passes (as seems likely at this point) it suggests a similar measure will become law for all of Canada.

But of course, Canada has always coddled Muslims. That wouldn't happen here...would it?

Well consider that just one day after the San Bernardino Islamic
terrorist attack, your emperor's hand-picked attorney-general
Loretta Lynch vowed that the laughably mis-named "justice department" will prosecute anyone she and the emperor claim has used “anti-Muslim rhetoric.” And how does she define that? 'Well, Canada defines it as anything offensive to Islam. The entire U.N. general assembly has passed a resolution that criminalizes...' You get the idea.

Again, if you think this isn't the goal, go back and look at the original language the Islamic drafters used--language criminalizing "blasphemy." And we know that Muslims consider anything critical of Islam is "blasphemy."

Do you think the drafters changed their purpose after the Bush administration said it violated our First Amendment? Ask a leftist. Of course they don't care either way, since anything that weakens Christianity or the U.S. is fine with them.

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city. It's beautiful, and until recently was quite civilized. But on New Year's eve a mob of "males"--estimated to number about 1,000-- sexually assaulted women in the central plaza.

MAINZ, Germany — Roving packs of men sexually assaulted dozens of women on New Year's Eve in western Germany's city of Cologne, officials said, describing the attacks as unprecedented.

The spree suggested a "new dimension of organized criminality," German justice minister Heiko Maas told a press conference on Tuesday.

Police said the attackers — who struck in pairs and groups of up to 20 men — appeared to be part of a larger, 1,000-strong group that had gathered in one of the city's main plazas for New Year's celebrations.

Cologne's police spokesman Thomas Held told NBC News that authorities had fielded around 90 complaints of pick-pocketing, groping and at least one of rape.

Eye witnesses described getting groped multiple times near the city's train station and its famed cathedral.

"It was horror. Although we shouted and hit around us, the guys did not stop. I was desperate," a 28-year-old woman identified as Katja L. told Cologne's Express newspaper, saying she was groped about 100 times while walking 600 feet.

Another woman, who did not give her name, told Bild newspaper that several men attacked her and her friend. "They had circled us and started to grope us. They were everywhere with their hands," she said.

NBC News was not able to independently verify the witness and victim accounts.

"But we tried really, really hard to verify. We interviewed every female in North Pole, Alaska, and not a single one confirmed the alleged attacks. So, y'know, being good 'journalists' we didn't want to jump to any premature conclusions, so we needed to let readers know that we couldn't verify the victim or witness accounts."

"What? You say we should have asked for victims to contact us and relate their accounts? Why on earth would we want to do that? That's not what journalists are paid to do. Our job is to report what government officials say at press conferences, and interpret it for people who might be skeptical for some unknown reason."

Police on Monday had said the suspects appeared to be of "Arab or North African descent," sparking fears on social media they were among around 1 million asylum seekers who have flooded Germany this year. Held told NBC News that it was too early to tell if the suspects were recent arrivals.

Amid the fears and outrage, Cologne city officials were meeting Tuesday to discuss further measures to prevent similar incidents.

That's the entire NBC story. Notice that the description of the suspects isn't mentioned until the next-to-last 'graf. Cuz journalism, baby. That's what the mainstream media always do with reports that don't support the emperor's narrative.

Notice how smoothly the Interior Minister reinforced the narrative that "refugees" were pouring into Germany "to escape persecution," when in fact virtually all unscripted interviews--in which local reporters interview immigrants the reporter has chosen at random from a large group--confirm that the immigrants are looking for free government housing, food and generous welfare benefits. Only a tiny percentage are from Syria.

Cologne police have reviewed about 90 criminal complaints from women who
described being robbed, sexually harassed and in one case raped as
revellers poured into Germany's fourth-largest city...

Witnesses described the men as "of North African
appearance," [a police spokesperson] said. The scale of the assaults became clear as
criminal complaints were filed after January 1 and two suspects have
been arrested, she said.

And then, taking the award for unintended clueless irony is this:

[German chancellor Angela] Merkel, who is facing criticism from the CSU and her
own Christian Democratic Union for declining to cap the number of
arrivals, reaffirmed her principled stance...

"In our constitution it says human dignity is inviolable. That applies not only to Germans and
people who live in Germany" but worldwide, she said.

So human dignity is "inviolable"? Maybe for Muslims seeking government support in Germany, but it sounds like Merkel isn't too concerned about the "human dignity" of the women who were assaulted by the mob.

But don't worry about your emperor importing ten-thousand military-age Muslim males into the U.S, cuz they won't be anything like their counterparts in Germany, France, Belgium and Sweden. You can count on that, because your emperor would never support a policy harmful to you and your family. Certainly he's never done anything like that before.

The guest was talking about the strong el Nino, and in an obviously-scripted exchange, one of the hosts said something like "And we saw the north pole reach 50 degrees last week..." But rather than correcting her--implicitly apologizing for Time's grossly erroneous story--the Time science guy didn't say a word to set the record straight.

Then a second host--again, scripted--said something like "And of course warming has many other bad effects other than climate, right?" Time guy: "That's right. Food insecurity in Africa and [other regions] will have a big impact on our national security!"

Point of this story: Time makes a gross, amateurish error, and then when a host on one of the morning flagship network shows echoes the bullshit report, rather than correct her the Time shill implicitly doubles-down on the error. Astonishing--and chilling.

Monday, January 4

Total number of missions flown by French AF in Syria since Paris shootings: a dozen.

Governments often tell their citizens one thing, when their actions show that the truth is radically different. Some of those actions are impossible to verify, but others are easily found to be...utter bullshit.

One example of the latter is the number of bombing sorties flown from known bases.

In the instant case we're looking at the number of sorties flown by French aircraft against ISIS.

After the Paris massacre on 14 Nov, French president Hollande vowed "To war." But according to the Italian newspaper Il Giornale since that time the French have flown just a dozen missions in Syria and about six per day in Iraq.

Such a nothing effort is about as effective as
the one carried out by the Obama administration, and one wonders why the air effort is so low-intensity. The French claim "the Pentagon" is only allowing them to fly a small number of missions. By comparison, in Belgrade in 1999 the French air force flew 52 sorties a day, an effort almost nine times higher than the current one.

So who's lying? Are the French really not serious about retaliating against ISIS, or are they being throttled by the U.S ("the Pentagon")?

To help decide, consider that Air Force sources have confirmed that most U.S. missions don't expend any ordnance. That is, the emperor doesn't seem particularly interested in inflicting damage on ISIS. And if the U.S. controls sat data (which is usual), it wouldn't be unusual for "the Pentagon" to limit the number of targets it's been giving the French air force.

In any case, the fact remains that neither the USAF nor the French seems to be serious about hitting ISIS. Wonder why not?

Interesting: The Koran calls on Muslims to kill non-Muslims, but this is not considered "agitation of the people towards violence." But "prayer suggestions"--none of which were pro-violence--bring down the full weight of the mighty State. And of course most Germans--as most Europeans--simply shrug. What else can they do? There, as here, politicians do as they please, without regard for how their decisions affect "ordinary" citizens.

There's a word for that philosophy, but I can't quite recall it now. But it reminds me of a former queen of France--Marie Antoinette--who is reported to have similarly dismissed the misery of the common folk with the derisive sneer, "Let them eat cake." Shortly thereafter the common folk threw her superior ass on the guillotine and separated her superior head from her neck.

But of course we're way, way more tolerant of imperial abuse now than back in Marie's day.

A European's take on the future of Europe vis-a-vis Muslim immigration

After a decade of watching Western European immigration politics
closely, one fact stands out: no matter what party is in power, the rate
of Third-World immigration tends to remain the same, or increase. The
Social Democrats, the Greens, the Christian Democrats, Labour,
Conservatives, center-left, center-right — all of them implement more or
less the same policies. They all promise to get tough on immigrant
criminals and correct the abuses, but nothing really changes.

A chan0ge might be possible if one of the “far right” parties gained
power — the PVV in the Netherlands, Sverigedemokraterna in Sweden, the
Front National in France, etc. — but the existing power structure is
doing everything it can to make it impossible for such parties to form
governments. In a parliamentary system, if all the other parties
establish a cordon sanitaire around an immigration-critical
party, such a party would have to gain an absolute majority in order to
rule — a very unlikely event.

Furthermore, the fact that leaders of such parties are demonized in
the press, hounded by the state, and repeatedly prosecuted for “hate
speech” makes their chances of governing slimmer still.
The campaign against those who would halt immigration is so uniformly
relentless and extensive across the entire continent that we may assume
it is being ordered and orchestrated at a supranational level.
Somebody, or some consortium of somebodies, is expending enormous
quantities of money, effort, and manpower to make sure that the flow of
immigrants into Europe remains unimpeded.

Will significant numbers of immigrants be deported after being convicted of terrorism, or any other crimes?

History indicates deportation will be extremely rare. The European Commission on Human Rights is notorious for stepping in to
prevent deportation, on the grounds that the would-be deportee has a
“right to a family life.” They carefully avoid the question of why the would-be deportee has the right to have that "family life" in Europe, as opposed to wherever he came from.

Will Western countries reform their entitlement systems, and make it impossible for new immigrants to live on the dole?

Some European countries have been talking about cutting back the welfare allowances given to illegal immigrants. However, the subsidies and stipends are so incredibly generous that even if they were cut in half they would still be a
fabulous inducement for poverty-stricken migrants to make the trek to
Europe.

Short answer: The leaders of European nations will do nothing to substantively reduce the number of migrants. And even if the leader of one nation tried to cut benefits, the politicians who run the EU can block any such move on the grounds of mumble mumble bullshit bullshit.

Shorter answer: Nothing is likely to reduce the number of Muslim immigrants entering Europe. Which means all the European nations are effectively doomed to become Muslim-dominated.

One commenter began: “The first step for any patriotic Govt is…”

The host replied:

Our core problem is that there are no patriotic governments in
the West. None. All our efforts should be concentrated on changing that
deplorable situation....

In the governments of the West (and I do not include Poland, Czechia,
Slovakia, and Hungary in the West) there are only mendacious traitors,
NWO toadies, cynical and corrupt bureaucrats, committed socialists,
ambitious and unprincipled opportunists, and agents of the Muslim
Brotherhood, in various mixtures. There are no patriots in charge.

Media: "Socialism good, capitalism bad."

One of the constant messages broadcast relentlessly by the mainstream media is: Socialism and more government control are good; capitalism is bad.

A fair question to ask them is: Why do you constantly transmit this message? If you believe it's accurate, what is the factual basis for your conclusion?

If one could ask this of "reporters" and editors they would deny sending any such message. Instead they'd claim they were objective and unbiased. Because if the truth came out, young people would be justifiably skeptical of the message.

The fact is, socialism and an all-powerful central government have produced awful results everywhere they've been tried.

Leftists will wail that this absolutely not true--that for every Cuba or Venezuela or North Korea or Albania or former Soviet Union there are an equal number of examples of socialist or totalitarian countries that are faabulous success stories.

Of course the Left has excuses all lined up to "explain" the examples of socialist failure. In Cuba, for example, the excuse is that the U.S. "blockaded" the island nation. This of course is bullshit--neither the U.S. nor anyone else ever blockaded Cuba. Congress did pass a law that American companies couldn't sell goods to Cuba, nor buy Cuban goods, but the rest of the world was free to continue trading with Cuba, and did.

Cuba now has one of the poorest standards of living of all western hemisphere nations. Oh, they have free medical care for all--except if you're not "connected" to the Party you have to bring your own sheets, bandages and antiseptic. And the technology for "ordinary" people is right out of the 1950s. But no matter: It's FREE MEDICAL CARE! Woohoo!

Consider Venezuela: As recently as 1970 that oil-rich country had the highest per-capita income in Latin America. But the socialist/totalitarian government of Hugo Chavez and his hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro have turned that completely to shit in barely 20 years. Today even the most basic consumer items, like toilet paper and cooking oil--are rarely available in stores.

The Leftist excuse here is that the U.S. has "sabotaged" Venezuela's economy. How this was done is never convincingly explained--and indeed, no one has the balls to ask Maduro or his lackeys how--in detail--it was done. But of course no explanation is needed, because no one in the government ever has to explain.

But Venezuela looks relatively successful compared to North Korea, where the dictatorship has been starving its own people for decades. Not in the cities, of course, because a handful of foreigners visit the cities, and if city residents were starving the story might leak out. But out in the countryside it's a vastly different story.

The pic below is worth thousands of words:

The brilliantly-lit region at lower-right is South Korea. The black hole in the upper center isn't ocean, it's North Korea. The one bright spot in the sea of black is the capital of that dismal nation.

For those who graduated from government highschools, South Korea is a free society that prizes capitalism, while the North is a communist dictatorship. But don't draw any conclusions from this pic, since...well, Sorth Koreans are an entirely different people, genetically, from their cousins in the north. The southerners are soft and love luxury, which the northerners are hardier and don't need lights to be happy. Or some such horse-shit.

The examples of the success of freedom and free markets and capitalism are everywhere--as are the examples of socialist failures. But western "journalists" focus on the results of personal choices that most rational adults would regard as...stupid. Example: If you demonize study and hard work and academic excellence, and glorify drug dealers and gang-bangers and impregnating as many females as possible, with no thought for supporting the offspring, can any rational adult claim to be surprised at the outcome?

But your betters in government and the elite media have a better explanation: Capitalism must be at fault, because unequal results. By the same reasoning socialism must be good, because you get equal outcomes for all regardless of bad personal choices.

They don't get it. They'll never get it. But no matter, cuz they're sooper-smaht, and they have the platforms that let them shape opinion. So...socialism good, capitalism--HEY LOOK, Kardashians!

Eh, no big deal, right? Prolly not even true...cuz if it was true, surely the mainstream media would have told you about it, right? I mean, isn't Brussels where the governing body of the European Union meets? Of course that may not be big deal--hard to know from here.

But...did you say 804 cars were torched? Geez, that's...well do they know who did it?

But seriously, I'm sure glad our Obama-loving media didn't report this, cuz that might have made ordinary Americans just the tiniest bit skeptical about the emperor's decision to import ten-thousand more of 'em into this country--without even asking state governors if they were willing to host 'em.

Wait, what was I thinking?! The media tell me there's an amendment to some old document that says "All powers not specifically delegated to the States are automatically given to the federal government." So I guess that makes any concern about this stuff sorta' academic, eh?

Friday, January 1

Republicans in congress [spit] give Obama and Dems every spending item they wanted

In the two midterm elections in 2010 and 2014 voters gave the Republicans landslide victories, and they now have the largest number of seats in the House since the Civil War.

And it hasn’t made any difference at all. In the giant budget bill just completed, the Republicans gave Obama and the Dems everything they wanted. Here is a partial list of what Obama requested and received from the Republican-controlled congress:

1. Funding for Obama’s executive amnesty program
2. Funding for so-called “sanctuary” cities that refuse to turn illegal aliens over to the feds;
3. Funding for all of Obama’s refugee programs
4. Funding for all of Obama’s immigration programs
5. Funding for Obama’s illegal alien resettlement programs
6. Funding for the release of criminal illegal aliens imprisoned in the United States
7. Funding for tax credits for illegal aliens
8. Elimination of spending caps
9. Funding for Planned Parenthood abortion services
10. Funding for ALL of Obama’s climate change programs
11. Funding for Obamacare
12. Funding for INCREASED government spying on U.S. citizens

Muslim deputy director of a state ACLU refuses to condemn "terrorism"--regardless of origin

Ever since 19 Muslim hijackers crashed passenger jets into both of the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, Americans have wondered why so-called "moderate" Muslims have been so reluctant to condemn such attacks.

Now a Muslim female who is also deputy director of the ACLU of Michigan has explained. Writing in the Washington Post, she says she emphatically refuses to "condemn terrorism."

Of course you think this is impossible, that I've summarized her words improperly. You can't believe any human being would refuse to condemn "terrorism," regardless of what group commits it.

But the Muslim deputy director of the Michigan ACLU "emphatically" refuses to condemn terrorism. Click on the link if you think I'm kidding. Here are the opening 'grafs of her column:

Wow. Note she doesn't say she was asked to condemn Muslim terrorism, but simply "terrorism." And yet she still refuses.

One struggles to imagine a reason. After all, she claims that "the majority of terror attacks have occurred in five...Muslim-majority countries," and that "close to 90 percent of the victims of Daesh are Muslims." And yet...she still refuses to condemn this tactic.

Her reasoning?

Muslims across the globe are not threats. They are threatened.

"Threatened"? By whom? By other Muslims, fighting for control of the building caliphate. But she can't admit this, so she cunningly leaves out the source of those threats--leaving the average Post reader with the impression that the poor Muzz are being threatened by gun-toting, intolerant white American males--which she cleverly demonized in her 3rd 'graf.

This, of course, is a brilliant bit of propaganda--a signal to Muslims who might have been inclined to tip off authorities if they learned of a coming terror plot not to do so. Because if simply condemning "terrorism" is a form of self-oppression, actually cooperating with law enforcement to stop a terrorist act would be far worse.

Here's the quote:

...as Muslims, we contribute to our own oppression by erroneously believing that if we just apologize, then the anti-Muslim rhetoric will end. And it never does.

She ends her piece with this:

But terrorism is not mine. I will not claim it, not even through an apology.

But clearly, no one has asked her--or any other Muslim--to claim terrorism, but to condemn it. And again, she refuses.

Any bets on whether the ACLU will disclaim this viewpoint? Of course they won't. Because they agree with it.

About Me

Ex-AF pilot. While airliners are very safe, flying a single-pilot jet can be extremely demanding, especially in bad weather. It's a *huge* tribute to engineers that today's commercial jetliners are so amazingly safe!